A local college once accused of being a “diploma mill” for allegedly selling grades and degrees paid its president more than any institution of higher education in the nation, according to a new survey.

Touro College’s $4.8 million compensation package topped those of heavyweights such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Thirty college presidents earned $1 million or more in 2008, the most recent year available, but none took in more money than Touro president Bernard Lander, an Orthodox rabbi who founded the school in 1970 and died in February at 94.

Lander earned five times more than the presidents of Harvard, Princeton and Johns Hopkins, who were all paid close to $800,000, the survey said.

Touro said $4.2 million of Lander’s salary was retroactive pay and benefits awarded after an outside consultant determined he had been “severely underpaid.”

Lander’s fat paycheck came in the same year some of his own administrators were accused of selling grades and diplomas.

Prosecutors said 10 school officials pocketed tens of thousands in bribes from students who wanted to change bad grades to A’s — or purchase fake degrees.

Even people who never attended the school would pay thousands of dollars for phony transcripts, officials said.

Two administrators were convicted and received jail sentences of two to eight years on the charges. Several other cases are pending.

Lander was never implicated in the scandal, which left many students wondering if their degrees were worthless.

Last year, a group of students from New York Medical College, a Westchester school affiliated with the New York Archdiocese, protested a possible merger with Touro, claiming the association would devalue their medical degrees.

The schools completed an affiliation agreement in December.

Lander founded Touro in 1970 as a small men’s college. Over the next 40 years, it expanded to include nearly 18,000 students at 29 campuses in New York, Florida, California and Nevada.

It is the largest Jewish-sponsored educational institution in the country, and includes two colleges of pharmacy, three colleges of osteopathic medicine, graduate schools and colleges in health sciences in several states, and a law school on Long Island.

Alan Kadish, the school’s senior provost and chief operating officer, took over as president after Lander’s death.

Lander’s son, Rabbi Doniel Lander, was named school chancellor.

Their salaries were not immediately available.

“Value is in the eyes of the beholder,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of the Chronicle. “Some boards think these presidents, even at small institutions, are worth it. On the flip side, the prestige of serving at other institutions is enough of a paycheck for some.”

Editor’s Note

Touro College states that, under the leadership of President Dr. Bernard Lander, it discovered the compromise of its computer system, identified those responsible for the wrongdoing and reported their activities to the New York City Police Department. There are no pending cases against school administrators in relation to the selling of grades. Further, prosecutors said three school employees (not 10, as reported in the original article) were involved in the scandal. There was never any allegation that the College profited by reason of the wrongdoing by these individuals. We also reiterate, as stated in the article, the $4.8 million payment did not represent Dr. Lander’s annual salary package and that $4.2 million of this sum was retroactive pay and benefits awarded to him after an independent consultant determined he had been “severely underpaid” over the course of his nearly 40 year career.